


Lavender's Blue

by 0bviousLeigh



Series: The Three Lives of Kurosaki Ruri [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Gen, Mama Kurosaki is my OC, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 12:07:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9384293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0bviousLeigh/pseuds/0bviousLeigh
Summary: Reina Kurosaki gets the shock of her life when a bolt of light deposits a baby girl in front of her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title/song excerpts from the folk song "Lavender's Blue." You may be familiar with it as a song from the movie Cinderella (2015).

_Lavender's green, Dilly dilly, Lavender's blue  
If you love me, Dilly dilly, I will love you_

* * *

 

Reina had found that when people talked about the struggles of motherhood, they meant things like childrearing versus work, being a wife and mother at the same time, their children’s terrible twos, and potty training. Reina had found that in her opinion, the little things were the real struggles—things like boredom. How many times had Shun whined to her about being bored? This despite having more toys than she could keep track of and a beautiful backyard to play in. of course his boredom stemmed from wanting a playmate, and sometimes Reina just couldn’t be that playmate.

After a solid week of rain and keeping Shun inside, both he and Reina were ready to climb the walls out of cabin fever. The moment the rain stopped, Reina grabbed Shun and they ran to the playground. It was a weekday and school was still in session, and the playground was empty. The play structures were all soaked from the rain, but Reina didn’t care if Shun’s clothes got wet, the sun was finally out and it was warm, he would be fine.

“Mama, watch me!” Shun shrieked at her from the top of the slide. Reina kept her eyes fixed on her little boy as he slid headfirst, and ended up in a puddle. He grinned up at her and giggled, and Reina laughed with him. Her son was a goof, a handsome little goofball who she adored more with each breath he took. Reina never knew she could love someone as much as she loves Shun.

Shun leapt to his feet. “Look mama, I’m a duck!” he cried, stomping in the puddle and quacking.

Reina shuffled her feet in the puddle under her feet and quacked as well, and Shun clapped his hands and jumped with joy.

“Let’s go to the pond!” Shun said, grabbing her hand and jumping up and down. “Can we, mama?”

Reina didn’t see the harm, he was already wet. They walked through the playground and over the muddy hill to the little duck pond on the other side of the park. Shun yammered on about how baby ducks couldn’t go to school because they didn’t have hands, but he bet they played soccer really well. Shun said the most creative things, it was really amazing.

Reina always wondered how Shun would react to having a little sibling. She and her husband had been thinking about it, they tried for a while after Shun was born, but Reina was beginning to suspect that something wasn’t right. Perhaps Shun would be her only child. She was okay with that, but she knew some part of her would always wonder what it would be like to have another baby.

There was a family of ducks in the pond, and Shun was overjoyed to see them. Reina didn’t have bread crumbs, so Shun threw bits of grass in the water in hopes of tempting the ducks closer. A few of the babies tried to approach, but their mother herded them away from the shore. Reina let Shun continue his attempts at making friends with the ducks for a while, until she got a sudden chill down her spine and a feeling of urgency over took her. She clutched her jacket around herself and looked about, but nothing seemed amiss. Still, something deep in her heart was saying that something wasn’t right.

“Shun, time to go,” she said.

Shun brushed off his knees and waved to the ducks, and Reina clutched his hand tightly as they walked away from the pond. As they climbed to the top of the hill, the strangest thing happened. Reina saw a beacon of light shoot down from the sky, and collide with the ground, like a bolt of lightning, landing not a few dozen meters from where she and her son stood. She cried out in shock, but as soon as the sound left her mouth, the light disappeared, seemingly leaving no trace, and for a moment Reina wondered if she had imagined it.

Shun gasped and pointed. “Mama, there’s something there!”

Reina looked at the ground where the light had touched it, and saw a small bundle of cloth. That same chill she had felt before went through her body again.

“Stay here,” she told Shun, and she let go of his hand and ran to the bundle. As she got closer, she heard a small cry emitting from it, a cry she knew only too well. Reina fell on her knees in front of the bundle of white cloth. By now she was convinced that she knew what lay within those folds of cloth, and sure enough when she pulled back a corner of the blanket, she found herself looking into the face of a tiny baby.

Reina was bewildered, frantic, and angry. She didn’t know what that bolt of light had been, but from where she was standing with Shun, she hadn’t seen this bundle before the light struck, and she certainly hadn’t seen it on her way to the pond. Was it possible…that the light had brought the baby, and left it on the ground? But that was impossible!

She scooped up the baby and cradled it to her chest. It was a tiny thing, it couldn’t have been more than a month old, and it was lying on wet, muddy ground. Fury engulfed her. How could someone abandon a baby like this?

“Mama?” Shun called, fear in his voice.

Reina stood and turned towards her son. “It’s okay sweetie,” she called.

Shun ran to her and stared up at the baby in her arms. “Is that a baby?!” He asked. “Did it come from the sky?”

Reina looked up. The sky was clear, it couldn’t have been lightning she saw, could it? She ignored Shun’s questions and dug her phone out of her pocket. She dialed the police, and as soon as someone answered, she blurted, “A baby’s been abandoned! Send someone, quickly!”

She rocked the baby in her arms, talking to the police officer on the phone and trying to block out Shun’s increasingly frantic questions, questions she didn’t have answers to. And some part of her, some deep, primal feeling, was telling her that this baby belonged to her. Reina tried desperately to push that feeling away, to tell herself that the baby might not have been abandoned by its mother—

 _‘Her,’_ a voice inside her said. _‘It’s a girl.’_

Reina cradled her phone against her shoulder and pulled back the blanket long enough to see that the baby was naked and, indeed, a girl. She was also, inexplicably, clutching a bracelet. Perhaps a keepsake from whoever abandoned her? Reina quickly covered the baby up again. She didn’t know how she had known that the baby was a girl.

 _‘The same way you knew that you loved Shun with all your heart,’_ that little voice inside of her said. _‘You know that this baby is yours.’_

Reina looked into the little girl’s face, and knew that the voice spoke the truth. She loved this baby already, the same way she loved Shun when the nurses handed him to her in the hospital, and even before that when she knew she was carrying him. Reina never had words for that kind of love, the love that came from deep within her very soul and consumed her. Was it possible that this baby was a gift from god? Had her secret wish for another baby been heard?

Reina may not have had those answers, but she now had a fire burning in her soul. She was going to keep this baby, one way or another.

 

 

Shun was confused, and more than that he was angry. In a matter of days, his entire life had been changed, and he didn’t like it one bit. It wasn’t fair, the baby was stealing his mama, and she wasn’t his family no matter what mama and papa said about her being their family now! Shun wished that light had never left the baby in the park. He wished he and his mama had never brought the baby to the hospital, he wished papa hadn’t come and seen the baby, and he wished he never had to hear the word “adoption” ever again. He still didn’t even understand what it meant! He created his own meaning for it—it meant a stranger who got a room in his house and his parent’s love.

Every time Shun’s mama smiled at the baby, Shun wanted to scream. Sometimes he did, too. He dropped things on his toes on purpose, or hit his head on things. Mama got sad when he does that, sometimes she cried, too. She hugged Shun and told him that she still loves him, she has enough love for him and the new baby, but Shun didn’t pay attention, he was just happy that mama was holding him and not the baby. Papa said that Shun just needed to “adjust,” whatever that meant.

One day mama was giving the baby a bottle, and Shun was sitting on the floor wondering how bad it would hurt if he fell down the stairs.

“Shun, do you want to hold the baby?”

Shun jumped and looked up at his mama. “Huh?”

Mama smiled. “I never asked you. You can hold her, if you want to. I can help you.”

Shun had to think about it. Hold the baby? Why would he want to? But…maybe it would be fun. She was little, like a puppy. Maybe she would be less wriggly than a puppy.

“Okay,” Shun said.

Mama told him to sit on the couch, and she put a pillow under one of his arms. Mama put the baby carefully in Shun’s lap, and she put the baby’s head on Shun’s arm, the one on top of the pillow. The baby looked confused, and for a second Shun was scared. She was looking at him funny, was she going to cry? Did she hate him? Shun was about to tell mama to take her back, but then the baby smiled.

Mama gasped. “Shun, she’s never smiled before! Her first smile and it was at her big brother!”

Shun looked up at his mother. “Brother?” He asked.

Mama smiled. “That’s right, sweetie. That’s what adoption means, she’s going to be your baby sister.”

Shun looked down at the baby. His sister? His baby sister? She was…going to be his?

“She’s _my_ sister?” Shun asked.

Mama sat next to Shun and put her arm around him. “Yes, my love. She’s yours.”

Shun felt something warm in his chest. The baby was his? Oh. Well, that changed things. If she was his, then maybe it wasn’t so bad for her to be living in his house, and for mama and papa to love her. Maybe Shun should love her, too.

“Did you name her?” Shun asked.

Mama said, “Papa and I are thinking of calling her Ruri.”

Ruri. Shun liked it. He smiled at Ruri. “Hi, Ruri. I’m your big brother.”

Ruri waved her arms and smiled again, really big, like she was happy. Shun kissed her cheek and she let out a tiny, happy sound. Later, Shun would remember that as the exact moment he fell in love with his baby sister. He may not have wanted her at first, but from that day on, he couldn’t imagine life without her, and he would keep that feeling close to his heart for years to come.

 

When Shun and Ruri became part of the Resistance, Shun took Ruri aside and said he had something to tell her.

“Mom and dad should have told you this,” he said, trying not to think about the empty home he and Ruri had found, with no trace of their parents, and how they weren’t sure they’d ever see their mom and dad again. “But, Ruri…they adopted you.”

Ruri was silent, and Shun began babbling. “Mom and I found you in the park, you were alone and she just…she went right to and picked you up, and I knew she loved you the second she held you. I remember I was so jealous of you at first, because they were my parents but they loved you. But the first time I held you, I fell in love with you, too. You’re my family, I love you so much Ruri, and you are my sister, but if something happens…you should know. I’m sorry it has to be like this but I don’t want…if something happens to me, too…”

“It’s okay,” Ruri finally said. She smiled. “I kind of…guessed. But I never felt like I wasn’t part of the family.” She hugged Shun. “I’m glad you told me. I love you too, my brave big brother.”

Shun hugged her tight, and for the first time since their city was attacked, he cried. He cried for the parents he missed and the burden placed on him as his sister’s only family left. He knew then that he would die for Ruri if it came down to it. He would give his life for hers if he had to. Anything to keep her safe.

 

 

Anything to keep her safe. Before the war was over, Shun would test his limits over and over, all for Ruri. And he would do it all again in a heartbeat. Anything to get his baby sister back.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my favorite theory for how the Kurosaki family found Ruri, though I really like the theory I explored in the previous part as well. I just feel like, though it hasn't been talked about in the show, this theory is probably a little closer to canon. Maybe minus the flash of light, but the Kurosaki parents probably found a baby girl and adopted her.


End file.
